[Parts Check] Quickest failure?

Well, I think I've just had a record for me on new hardware failure and wondered what is your quickest time for failure of new hardware.

Me:New Toshiba Satellite Ultrabook psu4wa-00r004Setting up for a b'day present, battery charged to full while updating everything, as I remember the alert, including bios, gulp, when all done for the day, put it away and the next morning the power converter would not supply power. I've swapped all parts out and need to engage Toshiba for a new power lead.

Time frame - less than 14 hrs.

It might have been earlier but didn't note when the battery was engaged until I did the Intel updates and was told it was not under cabled power!

What's your story?--The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke

Forgot to plug in CPU fan on an Athlon XP 1800+. Started it, saw an Epox motherboard logo, screen went blank.

In 1 second I went from extreme happiness to extreme depression seeing my creation come alive then rolling over and dying because my $200 processor just fried itself. For a dead broke college student, it was heartbreaking.

Wow - nearly the same thing happened to me with the same motherboard company. Though I had a T-Bird 3 I think - can't remember if I forgot to plug in the fan, the fan did not work, or the fan header did not get power.

If I remember correctly I have never damaged a component or PC in all my years of working with them.

I've been fairly lucky with random hardware failures and mostly only had a few DOA (like system RAM for example). I consider DOA something of a mixed blessing rather then something failing out of warranty.

My most recent hardware failure was the PSU for my old HP EX490 MediaSmart Windows Home Server (v1 PP3) which was up to about 20TB of storage when it went down. An actual HP PSU replacement from a similar server would have likely cost me well over $100 USD on e-bay so I opted for a cheaper SFX PSU and had to change the pin-out to match the HP proprietary configuration.

Works fine now and all is well. I had the server for years on 24 / 7 without issues before this incident. I bought it in early 2010.

***edit***

Wait,....

I remembered that I bought a ViewSonic N3250w 32" HDTV (my first) back in 2006:

This Viewsonic model and some similar ones seem to have a known problem with power supply failures. I opened it up and found (as expected) that there were a number of bad capacitors (about 6). I replaced them but it still didn't kick over. I never got around to checking the work. I'll take another run at it though.

Forgot to plug in CPU fan on an Athlon XP 1800+. Started it, saw an Epox motherboard logo, screen went blank.

In 1 second I went from extreme happiness to extreme depression seeing my creation come alive then rolling over and dying because my $200 processor just fried itself. For a dead broke college student, it was heartbreaking.

For me, it was the thunderbird tiny core cracking when i put and secure my large heatsink. The thunderbird CPU are so lousy, they didn't have that protective metal covering that amd and intel ships now. When i was putting my pc together, i didn't know i cracked the core until i started my new computer. All i smell was this burn smell, removed the heatsink see that the core was cracked. Had to wait about a week and 200 dollar down the drain.

I'm not in the very least. That is the very reasons I stopped using Asus boards is that I kept getting dead ones, they would malfunction, or die shortly after being installed.--"I like to refer to myself as an Adult Film Efficienato." - Stuart Bondek

As crazy as it may sound Corsair XMS series RAM, seems like every build Core 2 to Core i series I seem to hit POST issues with stores who get mixed "batches". Oddly I never have problems with their "value/ghetto RAM", for high performance memory I mainly stick with GSkill & Kingston models with heatsinks.

2nd worst failure is Intel HSF, I've gotten a few duds which delayed builds. Most projects I tell clients they'll be footing the bill for Arctic Cooling HSF as the stock Intel ones are unreliable junk.

Way back in the day you could actually drop the CPU in more than one way. Must have been socket 4 as it seems socket 5 and up had asymmetrical pin layout.

I was upgrading the CPU in the family computer and it went up in smoke as soon as I turned it on.

Luckily that CPU was pretty cheap and it ended well with my dad paying for a new CPU and mobo that were better. I recall thinking that if I was evil I would've dropped it in the wrong way on purpose...

I never understood why it was so hard not to break the core... Attach the one side (usually closest to the top edge of motherboard) and then with one finger - press straight down in the middle of the fan and attach the clip by what ever means.

Never came close to breaking the core and did not need to have a lot of pressure to hold the hsf down. By pressing on the middle of the fan - that put any pressure straight on the core - right in the middle of it.

I have a feeling those cores were exposed because of the extreme amounts of heat it created and engineers did not think that current hsf would suffice without direct contact with the core (only a guess on my part).--Brian

I am very surprised this from 2 Asus boards - they are the first boards I look at when looking at motherboards.

Maybe the bios needs to be updated? Some folks at Newegg have to set the ram speeds manually...

Yup, two in a row were bad. One with a dead memory channel, the other just plain ole DOA. Third one is good (so far).--Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

A brand new system I looked at had what appeared to be a functional motherboard, but was malfunctioning. Cables were fine, but it never actually would boot any device on the system, hdd, dvd, or usb. Instead of the company just replacing the system, the company sends out a technician who apparently didn't know the difference between a pci express x1, and a pci slot. They didn't connect all the power plugs into the motherboard before connecting the power to the psu, and killed the new motherboard right there. This new motherboard wouldn't even enter the bios, and barely provided a post screen after the missing power cable was connected. I told them to demand the company replace the entire system now since this dumbass could have damaged far more than the board. They had to wait another week for them to rma the entire build.

I hate package systems. The lazy screwups didn't make sure it actually worked before they shipped it out, they just did a limited mobo post test, and connected a hdd with a image.--I distrust those people who know so well what god wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires- Susan B. AnthonyYesterday we obeyed kings, and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to the truth- Kahlil G.